GK: Ashita no Rondeau
by musubi.kei
Summary: When the hole opened up in the sky, everyone thought Kageyama was gone for good. But... where did he go? The year is 1970 and Japan is now Invader-free... what happens next? When Kageyama reappeared in front of Shun in GK1985 (official novel), something had changed. This is the story of what'd happened in-between.
1. 0: Prologue

"_**Ashita no Rondeau**_"  
**(Rondeau for Tomorrow)**

**0. _Joshou_**** (Prologue)**

He had always known that there would be a price. It was one of those things that had trickled to him through his Gate over the years. So when the darkness came to swallow him, he opened his arms to welcome her.

"Kageyama!!"

Far away, someone was screaming. "Why? Why! The real you can't be like this!" All around, the jagged black shards of his failures glistened, falling away in slow motion.

"Kageyama!" Someone cried, hanging on to him with all his tiny might, scarcely noticing his own danger. "KAGEYAMA!!"

He smiled.

With all his plans and ambitions disintegrating around him, it seemed a strange thing to do. He smiled. A fitting exit for Kageyama Reiji.

He crooked his knee and with what he felt to be his last strength, kicked the blubbering fool Ukiya Shun back to earth. This was his moment to enjoy alone as the sky opened herself up to him and drew him and all his toy soldiers into its perfect pit. How soft and warm the darkness, how blessed the silence.

So amidst the terror and confusion of the mere mortals left behind, it ends.

\\\///

She told herself she would not look up. He would have wanted her to watch, he wanted all of them to watch. So she, for one, was not going to give him that satisfaction.

But in the moment of crisis, Megumi discovered several surprising truths about herself: that she could no more keep herself from searching for his diminishing form amongst the figures circling the hole in the sky than she could allow a helpless friend to be injured, and that Ikusawa Ruriko, the bane of her existence, was, in her deepest of hearts, a friend.

She looked down at Ruriko's unconscious face and dropped her pillowing arms quickly as though it were a hot potato.

"I still hate you," she muttered quickly, and slipped away before the rest could catch her, her furiously red cheeks burning the tears from her eyes.

* * *


	2. 1: Indelible Dream

"_**Ashita no Rondeau**"  
**(Rondeau for Tomorrow)**_

_**.**_

**1. _Kienai Yume_ (Indelible Dream)**

He had not slept well since he was twelve.

The filthy ways of humanity pervaded his dreams like the lives of noisy neighbours on the other side of a cheap apartment wall, writhing and squealing like the blind, worthless, worms that they are.

Oh they could do so much better, if only they would open their eyes and try!

That life was behind him now.

He went to sleep —true sleep— in the heart of Ukiya's Vacuum Gate with a smile for the irony. No-one could have imagined the future he saw in those last moments in the AEGIS Captain's eyes, how humanity found redemption in a minus Gate, and how he, in the end, was nothing more than a plot device, a pawn, for bringing about that greater destiny.

He thought he should be disappointed, angry, even, but all he did feel was a sense of relief. Peace.

Here, in the heart of a minus Gate, was nothing. No futures, no whispers, no visions, no predictions, no premonitions. Only him, drifting away forever into the dark, and he slept.

.

"… wake…"  
… "… wake up…"

\\\/

**1 9 6 9**

/\\\

No story ever ends at the ending any more than it began at the beginning. Just because the eye of the narrator has moved on doesn't mean that the story is over.

Of course, just because a story isn't over doesn't mean that the rest is worth telling. Who really cares how the heroes explain themselves to their parents at night or how the losers picked themselves off the battlefield afterwards? Who really wants to know what each and every archetype and plot device does with the rest of their lives or how they make it through from one narrative episode to the next?

Nobody, Megumi would imagine. There was nothing really interesting to tell about her, for example. She picked herself up in front of the National Diet Building and went home in time to make dinner deliveries for her parents. It was a great night for business, what with everyone too glued to their neighbourhood television sets to cook.

Even with all the media coverage, no-one seemed to recognise her at all. One baleful bespectacled high-schoolgirl is very much the same as another.

And after all the bowls were collected, she took over the dishwashing and sent her mother to bed. It was well past midnight by the time she was done, and her father had been standing in the doorway for over an hour, watching her with a helpless, distant, expression.

"I'm sorry we can't do better by you, Megumi," he finally said as she walked past him. "…We are very proud of you."

To which she looked up for the first time since coming home and managed a faint, heart-felt, smile. "I'm okay, dad… you should go to bed."

.

She never did go back to school.

Her parents did not force the issue. The Kuroganes realised a long time ago that their daughter was different and spent much of her life clinging to standard parental operating procedures in an attempt to keep up.

"It's alright," her father said, breaking the long silence that followed her announcement. This was the first time Megumi had properly expressed her thoughts to either parent. Mother wept distraughtly, but Kurogane Yuuzei was a man from a tougher age.

"It's alright," he said, tasting the coppery tears of pride in the back of his throat, "we trust you. If you think studying at home on your own is better, then your mother and I will support your decision."

She couldn't bring herself to tell them that the real reason she did not want to go back to school was because she did not know how to face her classmates. Her Minus Gate was teaching her to read people, and she, in turn, was becoming a better liar.

The small muttering voice in her head that slips out every now and then noted repeatedly that she was better off dead after such a humiliating defeat, except she was too weak-willed to go through with that either.

AEGIS arranged a mass brainwash through Asagiri Reiko to wipe the memory of Kageyama's three-day reign from the mind of the general public.

Sometimes Megumi would catch her father watching her with a soft, helpless look that made her wonder if he was somehow unaffected and if he somehow recognised her as the girl who stood on the side of the giant black robot.

It would have been a simple matter of using her Gate to find out, but she didn't dare to face what she might find.

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**

/\\\

This is a different era from when you are used to.

The date is garbled. Not even those who live here are quite sure what day of what year it is now.

The time is "near dawn". Her watch hasn't worked in years, but she glanced at it anyway, an old habit. The symbol above the lifeless clock face belonged to Nike, Goddess of Victory. It calms her.

"Ready?" She turned to the frail figure behind her.

"In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo," the figure mewed, trembling under a dirty hooded evening cloak.

The young woman with the watch snuffed out her cigarette and carefully tucked the remains under the watchstrap. "You remember what to do?"

A small hand slipped itself into hers.

"Look with your eyes, not with your hands… when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you."

She took a deep breath and squeezed back. "Here we go… … opening gate…"

Back up around the corner to a safe distance.

A pressure builds in the still air, stirring up the dust of this ghost city, making it dance around our two strange characters and sucking it into… a hole in space, surrounded by one, two, three, four, _five_ black rings, cycling ominously in mid-air.

"One, two, tick-tock…"

In the faint, cold, morning light, her companion's eyes glowed with rings of orange that were bright as the sun as her black Gate was dark.

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**

/\\\

An unfamiliar voice called to him from the other side of time…

"…wake up!"

Why should he? It's warm here, and quiet.

"The clock stuck noon, she's there too soon,"

"We're out of options," the first voice gritted its teeth. He felt it… she— that became instantly known to him the moment she drew near. Ogawa Minoru, called Lich, nineteen… no, thir…?— The woman's hand sank through his defences, towards him, a motion that took no more than a heartbeat but felt like forever… "So WAKE UP!"

He felt her fingers dig into his flesh before the real shock from their contact hit, and The Boy Who Dreams of the Future screamed.

.

He had not slept well since he was twelve.

It would be irresponsible to say that his dreams were always the same. They were not.

But they told the same story, over and over: ruined cities landscaped with twisted bones, scavenging animals with madness in their eyes, curious black structures pinning down a miasmal sky, all across the world, stained rust-red in smog and old blood.

—Death.

—Decay.

—Despair.

He did not cry out from the horror of what he glimpsed in the woman's mind. That sort of scene no longer frightened him. Like any youth of today bombarded with images of violence and pandemonium, he was long since dead to it, even bored of it.

He cried now, because he saw that it was the world in which she lives.

.

* * *

Next Time: **2. _Shikkoku to Hayate_**


	3. 2: Pitch Black and Hurricane

"_**Ashita no Rondeau**_"  
**(Rondeau for Tomorrow)**

**.**

**2. _Shikkoku to Hayate_ (Pitch Black and Hurricane)**

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**

/\\\

It was strange to feel solid ground beneath him again. Gravity felt strange.

Kageyama Reiji understood right away in the pit of his stomach, the way he understood that this was no longer 1970 Tokyo and humanity still had no real cure to the Invader problem, that there was no time for questions and explanations. Even the brief moments he took to find his feet were ones they could ill-afford to spare.

The first thing he did was throw up, narrowly missing his captor/liberator(?)'s boots.

The woman, Ogawa… LICH, stood with her back to him and her nose to the wind, barely acknowledging him, every muscle taut and alert, like a Doberman scenting for blood. She held her wrist loosely in her right hand, pointed downwards in front of her as if it were a weapon, which wasn't at all inappropriate, seeing as it was her primary Gate-Opening hand.

Her partner, little more than wisps of blood-red hair beneath a heavy hooded cloak, leaned in to sniff the back of his head.

"Remember, no Gates. If we get separated, hea… Ruka, what are you doing?"

The creature under the hood lifted its head with child-like solemnity, "Air your blankets once a week, check for mould before you eat," it sang. The voice was feminine and strong, though its litany seemed helplessly fractured.

Lich clucked grimly. "Mould'll be the least of your problems if They catch us." You can hear the capital T scraping against her throat on its way up, and as if on cue, the enemy came into view against the grey, dead, landscape.

No need to ask who 'They' were—

—tasteless red and green suits clinging unnaturally to perfect mannequin frames, dark, square, glasses thought passé even in his own time, and that familiar purplish grey pallor and sheen…

Rank upon rank marching in on them, chanting in perfect unison:

—INVADERS!…

"Gate Energy Detected;

"Acquiring Target;

"DESTROY!"

He just hadn't expected _so many_.

\\\/

**1 9 7 0**

/\\\

"Ne~ Rurippe~ I get that housecalls are part of a class rep's job," the boy from the nearby high-school grumbled and whined all the way across the market, "but why do I have to come too?"

To most people, Ukiya Shun can only really be described as 'average, sloppy, with an adhesive bandage stuck permanently across the bridge of his nose'. Ikusawa Ruriko can usually find a few more words. At this moment, 'irritating', 'insensitive' and 'irresponsible' comes to mind.

_It's your job as team captain too!_ she thought viciously at him and retorted with a huffy "I said I'd treat you to ramen, didn't I?"

Shun has never been particularly receptive when it came to the subject of his captainly duties. He is a powerful Gatekeeper and an inspiration in the field, even Ruriko cannot deny that, _But there's more to leadership than leading the charge and being the best fighter! You also have to be on top of every possible situation and manage all the team's well-being_… she paused and looked guiltily up at the darkened window above the Tekkotsuken ramen house shop sign.

Megumi…

Ruriko took a deep breath, and reached towards the curtained threshold.

Shun strolled inside nonchalantly, brushing past her with a bright, casual, greeting for the proprietor, who returned it with the usual enthusiasm for returning customers.

"Yo, Kurogane-san,"

"Oh, Ukiya-kun! The class-rep too! What can I get you today?"

""Ooh… House Special pork broth with double the meat!" he grinned cheekily, "It's Rurippe's treat today!"

He narrowly dodged her smack to the back of his head. "I told you not to call me that in public!" she hissed.

Kurogane Yuuzei chuckled. Ah, youth!

It worried him a little from time to time that his own daughter was so different from these youngsters. She always was a dark horse, keeping everything to herself. Sometimes he secretly wondered if it was their fault for being neglectful parents. If they hadn't worked so hard at the shop and spent more time with her as a child, maybe she would have turned out to be a sunny, well-adjusted young lady like her classmate Ikusawa instead. If he had been smart and educated enough to take a white-collar sort of job instead…

"How's Megumi today?"

That girl, Ikusawa, was here every week, asking after his daughter, their former classmate. Was she well? How are her studies going? Did she need any help?

Supposedly there was some kind of antagonism between the girls that he did not quite understand. Ikusawa had offered out of sheer kindness to tutor Megumi to help her keep pace with the high school syllabus, but Megumi had thrown her out. It was Ikusawa's own fault, Shun said to him afterwards with a bored shrug. She shouldn't have been so patronising. Everyone knows Megumi's smarter than her, Megu just needs to believe in herself more.

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**  
/\\\

He scrambled more than he ran; tripping, crawling, clawing, running—

He has never felt so afraid. Sheer, visceral, terror tore at his throat and lungs, ripping each breath from him before he was done with it. His heart pumped and his limbs moved, scrambling, stumbling, of their own accord. He lost count of the number of times he fell.

Then suddenly, he was on his back and one of Them was standing over him, stretched and bent like a piece of plasticine, all red and grey and black and hissing TEETH! Sharp, monstrous fangs from the goriest horror flicks!

They let you think that in times like these, your mind panics and obsess over the idea of imminent death. They let you think this is why some people, most, freeze when they should fight or flee. They are wrong.

In times like this, your mind shuts down completely and turns control over to your subconscious and body. 'Decision' is no longer an option, only action. Those who don't respond after that, those who can't? That's because they have no instincts built into them.

Kageyama threw his hand up, blocking out the Invader's gruesome, comical, face. And it exploded.

"_NO!_" Someone screamed in rage from what seemed an incredible distance away.

He twisted around, dug deep into a place two or three centimetres above his heart, behind the thickest point of his sternum, and called for that old, familiar power.

His Gate opened, black as jet, deep as night, swirling languidly like ripples through a pond. "Shadow Blade," he croaked, as if calling to it were the key to summoning his attack. In a way, maybe it was. A thin slice of darkness emerged from the invisible pool and flew off with deadly accuracy at the nearest Invader.

It paused, uncertain of what it should feel or do for a moment as the shadow vanished without a trace through its torso. Slowly, a crack formed and the Invader watched, confused, as it slid sideways along a dark forty-five degree line on its waist and off its legs, finally shattering.

"_Idiot!_"

He wasn't sure where they came from. One moment he was alone, the next, Lich was behind him, dragging him to his feet by the scruff of his collar, screaming inexplicably, angrily, at him and the mad girl under the hooded cloak, Ruka, was waving her arms around like windmills and twirling in a wide circle around them, humming a childish tune.

A wide line of Invaders disappeared wherever she slashed across the horizon, as if falling into an invisible ravine: each wave of her hands scattered a dozen or more small orange-lit Gates along the ground under the enemy's ranks that devoured its victims soundlessly, gracefully, leaving only a single fragile crystal on the ground as prove of its existence until that too is crushed by its rapidly advancing colleagues.

How had they gotten so many?

"You arrogant fuck! I told you, Gate energy attracts them! Worse, now they've got your trail!"

"I… I can transport us," he stuttered under the pressure, his mind still struggling to reboot and catch up.

"Can't, They're everywhere," she snarled. "Anywhere you leave a Gate signature, They will gather in seconds. Ten minutes, if you're lucky. Unless you can teleport_ outside_ of an open Gate, that's not gonna do us any good."

"Hide-and-seek, star on star," the orange Gate's Keeper suddenly crooned, planted a tender kiss on her companion's cheek and vanished with a giggle.

"What the?"

Suddenly, the Invaders stopped and looked confused. Kageyama craned his neck.

"_RUKA!_" Lich cried, whirling around in a panic.

Like a dragonfly dancing on the water, she reappeared hovering over the frontlines of the Invader army, just out of arm's reach, waiting for them to notice and gather, then hops into her Gate again, emerging thirty feet further along, waiting, teleporting, waiting…

"She's leading them away," Kageyama muttered dumbly.

Lich quivered. It took all of her strength and determination not to go running after her. It would be stupid, and a complete waste of Ruka's plan. Well, she knows they're supposed to meet back at Nikotama if they get separated. _Ruka is quite capable of handling herself in a fight_, she reminded herself, but it didn't help her feel any better.

"I don't care if you could save the world," Lich hissed, shoving Kageyama forward in the opposite direction with more force than strictly necessary. "If anything happens to her, I will kill you."

\\\/

**1 9 7 0**  
/\\\

It wasn't that Shun meant to keep it from Ruriko, he just didn't know how to tell her that wouldn't seem like he was mocking her efforts to reach out to Megumi.

Every Thursday night, and sometimes on Saturdays, Ukiya Shun worked at the Tekkotsuken as an afterhours dishwasher. Most of those nights, even though Yuuzei's intention was so that she could have them off, Megumi joined him.

They haven't become best friends or anything, it wasn't like that. It was, after all, Megumi's family business and Shun's family needed the money —not that his mother said anything, but he was old enough to understand about money and the lack of it— Every little bit counts, so naturally he said yes when the job was offered.

The first few times, they hadn't said anything at all.

On his first shift, Megumi silently split the dirty dishes into two piles and left when her half was done. The next time, she stayed to watch him finish with a little furrow in her brow that might as well be painted on. The time after that, she started grabbing bowls out of his hands and doing them herself when she thought he wasn't doing them right.

Eventually, he learnt. Eventually, she spoke. He's not sure, but he thinks the first thing she said was "You missed a spot." Then something about "The sooner you're done, the less you cost us," even though he was paid by day, not hours.

Slowly, he came to enjoy those nights with her, with only the sound of swishing water and bowls dunking for company. Sometimes, when everything was put away to dry, she would give him pointers on his homework while she balanced the shop books.

He couldn't tell Ruriko about it because he knew she would somehow, however well-meaningly, ruin it.

.

* * *

Next Time:  
3. _**Nagareru Kawa no Shuuben**_


	4. 3: Around a Flowing River

"_**Ashita no Rondeau**_"  
**(Rondeau for Tomorrow)**

**.**

**3. **_**Nagareru Kawa no Shuube**_** (Around a Flowing River)**

\\\/

**1 9 7 1**

/\\\

1971, the 46th year of Showa, Japan is in a period of high economic growth and rapid development, weird memories of a mysterious enemy wriggling in the darkness long buried and forgotten.

Also buried in a cloud of gloom and doom are three third-year highschoolers standing together in a miserable knot slightly apart from the rest of their peers in front of their final mid-term ranking board.

The negativity emanated from a single girl, a stiff, pretty thing with a bright yellow ribbon strung through her long, warm brown hair. The boys caught in the bubble with her were merely collateral casualties.

"The bottom... you two are in the bottom ranks..." she muttered downwards at her fists, trembling uncontrollably with a vicious, dark, rage waiting to explode. "WHAT HAVE YOU BOTH BEEN DOING ALL YEAR?"

"Ah~ah, don't be mad, Ruriko-hime!" The giant bear of a boy known commonly as Banchou cried, "I've been training really hard with my Gate, sometimes I fall asleep before I open my books! I'm very sorry, Ruriko-hime!"

"Isn't the truth that you fall asleep at the sight of your books?" His friend Ukiya Shun jabbed good naturedly. His roguish grin, which usually made Ikuzawa Ruriko's chest flutter in an inexplicable state of agitation, had no success deflecting her anger today.

"This isn't a joke, March is around the corner, we have to buckle down and raise your grades now!"

"Come on," he shrugged, "at least we got in the top ten,"

"FROM THE BOTTOM!" WHACK! Came the customary Ruriko anti-Baka-Ukiya-Attack. "At this rate... at this rate we won't even be able to graduate t..." She swallowed the last word at the last minute, suddenly over-conscious of what the word "together" might imply.

"Why not? You're firmly seated in the top thirty, there's no way you'll fail," Shun protested, rubbing the side of his sore head.

THWACK! She hit him again, to keep him from seeing the deep blush on her face. "Because… because at this rate I'll be infected by your idiocy too!" She yelled and stormed off.

.

"She'll beat me into stupidity if I wasn't before," he grumbled at his best friend hours afterwards as they worked side by side washing up after closing at a local noodle house, the Tekkotsuken. Tonight, they're scrubbing down the kitchen. Her hair pulled back under a kerchief and glasses fogging over from her physical exertions, Kurogane Megumi looked like a boy as she wielded a long-handled scrub brush with expert precision.

"Ikusawa's right," she said quietly, even though it would have killed her to say those words of Ikusawa Ruriko just a little over a year ago, these days it felt surprisingly inconsequential. "If you don't start seriously studying soon, you won't graduate."

"Come on, what's the big deal anyway?" Shun continued to rant, "even if we get a bad score or can't graduate right away, Shi..." he'd started to mention the Commander of AEGIS, the secret and mysterious Gatekeeper organization which operated under the cover of Tategami High School and to which he, Ikuzawa Ruriko, Banchou, and, once upon a time, Megumi, all secretly belonged, then remembered they were not alone. "_SHOUCHOU_," — the local municipal authority— he corrected himself unnaturally loudly, "the _shouchou_ has already guaranteed us jobs! It's-one-of-the-terms-of-our-scholarship," he finished lamely, the last words tumbling out altogether in a rush.

If Megumi's father thought there was anything suspicious about that, he let it slide. It was best, Kurogane Yuuzei has come to accept, to let the young choose their own way in this new, changing world. After all, they know it better than their parents do. All any parent can do in this age is to support and love their children quietly, with faith, and not let the things they don't quite understand bother them too much.

"What if that was to fall through somehow?" Megumi countered unexpectedly.

Shun glared at her in shock and suspicion. "What are you saying, Megu?" He whispered, not wanting her father to hear.

"Nothing," she replied nonchalantly, not even noticing his sudden antagonism. Actually, it was one of the things she'd been working on.

Kurogane Megumi had once betrayed AEGIS and stood by the side of their greatest enemy, an evil Gatekeeper calling himself Shadow, against Ukiya Shun and his fellow Gatekeepers in a grand showdown that almost destroyed half of Tokyo. They failed, obviously, and for a time she had seriously contemplated seclusion and death rather than facing anyone again, the thought of having to carry that shame around was so crippling.

But then it struck her that it only mattered as much as she let it. Sure, those who know and remember would look down on her with scorn and suspicion for the rest of her life, but it wasn't as though she _didn't_ do it. She did, and when she really thought about it and was really honest to herself about it, she couldn't really think that she'd made the wrong choice. The others wanted to believe that Shadow had brainwashed her, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn't, so all that remained was living up to the consequences of _her choice_ and accepting whatever scorn, anger, pity or suspicion that would ever come her way because of it.

"Just 'what if'? What would you do then?"

"He can always come work for us, won't you, Ukiya-kun?" Yuuzei threw in generously with a wide smile that looked to Megumi suspiciously like his sly salesperson expression. "Maybe one day I can pass this shop over to you. What do you say, young man?"

In those days, when old family businesses like the Tekkotsuken were passed down with great gravity and responsibility from father to son, it was almost as good as a proposal.

"_Otou-san!_" Megumi cast her father a withering look. He knew she didn't feel that way at all about Shun!

To her complete surprise, Shun blushed.

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**

/\\\

What would have taken no more than forty minutes by car in 1969 took forever on foot in Kageyama's horrible new world.

It wasn't the world he'd envisaged and hoped for, nonetheless, it was his fault. He created this world when he trusted in a dream he'd glimpsed once in the heart of a reckless young man who'd cried in the face of his mortal enemy because he could not save him. He, Kageyama Reiji, no-one else, did this, by leaving the world to that young man and his friends. He should have known better. He should have been more responsible. He should have guaranteed the birth of that shining future with his own two hands. _Ukiya Shun—what happened?_

He didn't dare ask his... he wanted to call her his 'guide', but 'captor' seemed more in-line with her attitude towards him. Not that he could blame her in any good conscience, she's had to leave her partner to the largest army of Invaders he'd ever seen because of him.

Strange grasping structures loomed over an aging concrete city that was just as alien to him as what the Invaders had grown. Was this really Tokyo? Earth? If it wasn't for the Tokyo Tower cutting through the ruined skyline on his left, he would never have believed it. He wasn't even entirely sure the woman Lich, was really human, she seemed so harsh, so hard. He'd never met anyone with such a stoney heart as what he'd seen of hers inside the Minus gate's void, but it was not entirely new to him. He has seen it before, in Invaders.

She led them along a derelict expressway, weaving expertly between piles of abandoned vehicles fused together with rust. The six-hour trek was agony for Kageyama, being shoved, dragged and crammed along every which way to stay out of sight of wandering Invaders. The going got easier the higher they went. Though the air got harsher and they found less places to hide, they were able to stop every now and then for him to rest and look around.

The dirty orange sky drooped under the weight of a foul puce smog spewed out by comical mushroom-shaped chimneys, and the only green he has seen since he'd arrived was on the painted Invader suits. But what chilled him the most was what the expressionless, grey-faced creatures were doing.

They were leading human lives, or pretending to.

It was like an enormous, deathly silent, pantomime. Organised groups moved in neat ranks filing along cracked pavements and overhead bridges, waiting at long-broken traffic lights and crossing in perfect synchronisation. Pairs and trios of them marched in and out of various buildings, falling in step with one another and mimicking conversation. They sat at rotting desks in offices and schools, staring into space, in restaurants, lifting mugs and cutlery to their faces at regular intervals, behind shop counters, nodding slowly at each other, selling nothing, playing out every scripted motion with mechanical precision, occupying every urban space that'd once belonged to human beings.

"What are they doing?" He couldn't resist asking, peeking out at a roof full of Invaders blankly raising and dropping their arms in unison.

"Radio calisthenics, introduced in 1928 by Emperor Hirohito, reintroduced in 1951 by WHK-"

"No, not that," he interrupted. Radio exercises were already popular in 1969 as a way of building team morale and incorporating exercise into the urban man's daily routine. "The Invaders, all... all this," Kageyama stuttered, unable to explain.

"Oh, them," Lich ran a calloused hand through her fringe with a pained expression and retrieved a much-handled cigarette with about an inch of life left in it from a metallic black strap around her wrist. He would have called it a watch, except the glassy black disc embedded in it was blank and he could see no clock hands. "It's a demonstration. They're telling anyone left that the world belongs to them now," she said, fishing around her pockets for an odd little box with a hole on top just wide enough to fit the tip of a small twist of paper, or the end of a cigarette. There was a funny little pop as the tobacco lit. "Of course, there aren't enough of us left to matter anymore, but as turns out, they're too stupid to realise."

She offered him a puff, but he declined. Two minutes later, they were on the move again.

\\\/

**1 9 7 1**

/\\\

It was hard to believe Megu did not have prophetic skills. By the time the cherry blossoms withered and gave way to green, everything had changed.

AEGIS Far East was in trouble.

The end of Invader activity within Japanese borders meant the Far East branch had become obsolete. Tokiwatari Tetsuya, the Regional Commander, fought it as long as he could, insisting that the threat to his country was not over. However, with mounting evidence to the contrary and a rising flood of suspicious occurrences in Europe and the Americas, AEGIS Far East was officially disbanded in the May of 1971 and absorbed into various other offices better situated to respond to the greatest global threats.

All Far East personnel were given the choice to retire or be reassigned except Tokiwatari himself. Worrying discrepancies in the Far East branch's operations, discovered during the administrative change-overs, called his leadership into question. The whole Shadow fiasco was a disgrace. How did the enemy agent Shadow go unchecked roaming rampant under his nose in his own school? For that matter, how was Shadow able to turn not one, but _two_, of his Gatekeepers against humanity and AEGIS if he had been doing his job? Why has he not pursued Kurogane Megumi the traitor?

There were further concerns, such as why he deemed it appropriate to appoint a sixteen year-old kid to head his mechanics department, or why Banba Choutarou, a street thug who shows no affinity towards Gate powers whatsoever, was given Gatekeeper level access to AEGIS resources; and even how he enacted the transfer of Feng Fei Ling from Shanghai to Japan without proper clearance from Central Command. But on the eve of his tribunal hearing, Tokiwatari Testuya became another unfortunate statistic bearing tragic proof to the growing dangers of Japan's exploding traffic conditions.

A formal assembly was held in his honour at Tategami Private High School, the place to which he had dedicated so many years of stalwart service. It was a sombre affair, well-attended and to-the-point. Some district official gave a speech on the importance of road safety and the tragedy of loss of life, the head teacher spoke about his public character and contributions to education as Principal of the school, and the Student-body President presented suitably touching words of gratitude and hope in his memory. No-one mentioned his career in Alien extermination, but Ukiya Shun recognised many AEGIS support personnel from their secret underground command centre amongst the mourning alumni standing in the back of the auditorium.

Asagiri Reiko, rising star of the international classical music world and Tategami Private High graduate, closed the ceremony with an eight minute rendition of Heller's "Warrior's Song" which was an odd choice for a mentor's eulogy; nonetheless, there was not a dry eye around when she was done.

Afterwards, she stood in the school nurse's office with the rest of her comrades-in-arms for more farewells. She and fellow Gatekeeper Konoe Kaoru had accepted new assignments in London, where a new kind of music was being born, and Cape Canaveral, the industrial city of an emerging Space Age, respectively. No-one dared comment on Kurogane Megumi's absence.

"Don't worry about Japan, I, Banba Chotarou, will protect it with my life while you are gone!"

"Work hard over there too, Kaoru-chan! Reiko-san!"

"But, Ukiya-senpai, I don't want to go if it's not with you!" Seventeen year-old Konoe Kaoru has had a crush on Ukiya Shun for three long years. One of her reasons for accepting the position was because a similar offer had been made to him. The power of the Gate of Gales would be invaluable to the defence of America's space programme and whatever they might find out there.

"Don't, Kaoru-chan, you should go!" Shun picked up her warm, slender hand, the most feminine thing about the young female athlete, and gave it a brotherly squeeze. "They promised, right? You will be able to compete as much as you want in America. Don't let anything hold you back!"

"_Senpai_..."

She couldn't fault him for it, Shun has been the man of his household ever since his father died years ago, and he refused to leave his mother and sister behind. It was a worthy reason, but she couldn't help feeling disappointed. She was so looking forward to starting a new life with him!

"Be careful on your own, Reiko-senpai, I'll never forget you!" The weeping, sniffling wisp of a boy bawling his eyes out behind thick round glasses is Kanetake Meguro, simply called Glasses (Megane).

"_Arara_? It'll be okay... Ono-san is coming with me too so I won't be alone _desu_..." Reiko reassured him with a smile, though for some reason, it made him cry harder.

"Hey, don't cry," Ikusawa Ruriko interjected, "it's not like we won't ever see them again!"

"Of course not!" Kaoru cried, locking her arms around Shun's. "I'll make sure to come back and visit you often, Ukiya-senpai!"

"That's right," Ruriko smiled, forcing herself to ignore the other girl's shameless, open, display of affection. That lout Ukiya! He shouldn't be allowing such a young girl to get so close to him, either! Even though Kaoru was only a year younger than Ruriko and Shun. "We can all meet next year for the Winter Olympics!"

This was met with unanimous approval, but the reality is, the next time they all meet will be longer away than any of them could have imagined then.

Time marches on.

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**

/\\\

There was nothing familiar to Kageyama about Nikotama River district except its name. What had once been a booming shopping district was now a stagnant wasteland, razed completely flat and reminiscent of a giant crop circle, if the crops were high rises.

Crossing that threshold was like stepping into a completely different dimension. The ground glowed faintly, almost green and a little bit of red, with a strange, course, sand that crunched like glass underfoot and cut Kageyama's hand immediately when he tried to scoop up a handful.

"We'll camp here and wait for Ruka. Don't wander off."

Lich seemed reluctant to enter the dead zone.

Kageyama nodded mutely, entranced, and kept walking.

Something in a distance tugged on the edges of his perception, like a tiny whisper just out of earshot, or a vague, very vague, feeling of something important trying to surface out of his consciousness and be recognised. It felt like... people? A faint sense of warm, simple contentment? The sun was setting on the horizon in front of him. He was surprised to feel its warmth.

The sand seemed to sing and glow brighter where the light touched it, welcoming him in. Kageyama laid down and folded his hands together above his navel, feeling the aches and pains ebb out of him. He has never walked so far or so long all at once in his life, not even when he'd lost his home and ran away to live on the streets, several lifetimes ago. Small memories edged forward in his new-found tranquillity: his mother's voice, his father's hand, the delighted gasps of his friends when he performed his little magic tricks, a lullaby, and something else his mother used to sing, once, a long, long time ago...

This time, the shock was not so great when Lich, rousing him for dinner, squeezed his hand. Perhaps it was because they were not mired in the eye of a Minus gate, perhaps because her mind was on other things. He felt... pain, a deep, dull, old hurt from her that was how he imagined a lifetime of guilt and regret would feel like, and something else, flashes of better times, and worse times, strange times, a girl called Minoru, fruitfulness, in a different Tokyo from any he's seen and a different Invader Invasion from what he'd first glimpsed, a mad kaleidoscope of dreams, tears and memories.

"Ogawa-san... What happened to you?" The question brushed lightly past his lips, into the quiet night.

\\\/

**1 9 7 6**

/\\\

Lily-decked chapels with stained-glass windows and pearl-studded veils paired against pure white wedding gowns have always been her dream. Ikusawa Ruriko basked in it all and sighed. The only shame of it was it wasn't her wedding.

"Congratulations, Isogai-san... ah, _iie_, it's Nakamura-san now, isn't it?" She beamed at the blushing bride and her bridesmaids, artfully disguising her disappointment at not having been asked to be one of them.

"Ikusawa-san! It's great of you to come!" "It's been too long! How are you doing?" The usual civilities.

The woman of the hour was Isogai Ayako, her old classmate from Tategami Private High. Ruriko had to take a moment to put a face to that name when she received the invitation. It was Shun who remembered first, surprisingly, and Shun who rattled off a complete string of names and anecdotes reminding Ruriko of all sorts of things about their high school friends and days outside of AEGIS. Shun, who had trouble reciting his higher multiplication tables in high school!

The bridesmaids, Takanashi Satoko and Okamori Yasue, wore matching yellow sundresses done up in beautiful butterfly bows. Both of them had wedding bands over their matching scallop-edged white gloves, which they were comparing when Ruriko entered the room.

"I'm so relieved I'm finally joining you guys, Satoko, Yasue," Takanashi, soon-to-be Mrs Nakamura, confided, continuing the conversation. "For a while I was really afraid I was going to be left on the shelf!"

"_Deshou_? None of us are getting any younger!"

Ironic words, considering the Women's Liberation movement sweeping across the nation recently, and especially since these three were founding members of Tategami Private High's Political Awareness Society, back in the day.

"What about you, Ikusawa-san? Your husband must be really glamorous and prominent!"

The question caught Ruriko off-guard. "Uh... I'm sti... still single," she stammered, causing an immediate embarrassed silence.

"Oh, how like Ikusawa-san, she's too busy working on her career like a strong modern woman to date just anyone, isn't that right, Ikusawa-san?" Isogai offered kindly.

"Ah, yes, that's what it is," Ruriko laughed awkwardly.

"It'll take a really special man to measure up to Ikusawa-san! Not like my Takeshi, you know, he's just like a child..."

"Oh, I know! You know what mine said the other day..."

The women started dishing about their husbands and in-laws. Ruriko just nodded and laughed where she thought appropriate, feeling very small and lost. She remained that way throughout the ceremony and reception, and all the way home. It felt like life has moved on since high school she has been left behind.

.

Strolling down the banks of Nikotama River at lunch time with her long-time boyfriend, she felt just the tiniest pang of guilt for not mentioning him to anyone at the wedding.

"Shun, how long have we been together?"

"_Ee_? Why all of a sudden?"

"Well, you know, my parents have been talking to me lately and I've been thinking a lot too, I have some money put away and we've been going out for a while now..." She trailed off poignantly, hoping he would catch her hint, but when she looked up to see his reaction, she saw him chatting away with one of the amateur fishermen dotting the walkways and realised he hadn't been listening at all.

"Come look at this, Rurippe!" He called out enthusiastically, like a child with a new toy. "Have you ever seen such a beautiful trout? Hey buddy, how much for it?"

She probably wouldn't have noticed if Yasue and Satoko hadn't been gossiping in front of her the other day, but it's true, she does often feel like a babysitter when she's with him.

"Awesome! Look at that," he beamed, jogging back to her with the fish still flopping around in a dripping shopping bag. Ruriko shied away.

"Shun! Watch out for my dress!"

"This will go great on the grill. Why don't you come over for dinner after work, Rurippe?" For other couples, this usually meant a romantic date. With Shun, this meant a rambunctious family affair in the alley behind the little eatery where he works with however else was free to join the table, which usually meant him, his mother, his sister Saemi, Bancho, who'd started working at the shop upon his return to Tokyo last year, and sometimes Kurogane Yuuzei, his boss. Ruriko's heart sank.

"What were you saying just now?"

"Oh! Uh... you know," Ruriko fumbled, and missed her chance to a tinny alarm beep from his wrist. They glanced down at his watch at the same time, a regular cheap old thing sold to children in neighbourhood stationery shops.

"Why aren't you wearing the watch I gave you?" She asked unhappily.

"Huh? Saemi got me this one because yours is too precious to wear to work," he replied without the slightest realisation of her mood. He was right, of course, who in their right mind would wear a forty-seven thousand yen Casiotron to work in a hot, steamy, greasy kitchen?

"Ack! Sorry, Rurippe, I've got to get back. Come over tonight and you can tell me then, okay?"

Even though it was phrased as a question, he was already heading off towards the bus station in a run. _He really is just like a child_, she thought gloomily as he turned at the edge of the road to wave her goodbye. She raised her hand to shoulder height and waved back reservedly.

She didn't really feel up to facing everyone at the dinner table that night, but it would be embarrassing for her not to go. The fish was a masterpiece, according to everyone else, but she barely tasted it. She ate a little, to be polite, and pleaded an early night.

"Rurippe, wait up, I'll walk you," he slurped up the rest of his soup and stood up so quickly he bumped against the table and almost spilled everyone else's drinks and soup. She waited for him because everyone was watching and she didn't want them to think anything was wrong, but part of her really wanted to just keep walking.

"You know it's dangerous out on your own in the dark," he muttered as he caught up to her. It's been several years since either of them has seen any large scale Invader attacks, but the threat was still there and occasionally they still do spot things that seem suspiciously Invader-like out of the corner of their eyes.

"I wonder how Reiko-san and Kaoru-chan are doing?" She asked out of nowhere.

What the young Gatekepers hadn't realised when faced with AEGIS Central Command's reassignment offers five years ago, was the meaning of "secret organisation". Once reassigned, Asagiri Reiko and Konoe Kaoru were whisked away into clandestine new lives where any contact with non-AEGIS personnel not deemed necessary to maintain one's cover is strictly forbidden. By refusing a new position within the organisation, Ruriko and Shun (and Bancho, although in his case he was never offered a place) were no longer members of AEGIS. It was only months after they had made their decisions that they realised the reality of their choices and just how much freedom they had enjoyed under Commander Tokiwatari Tetsuya in the Far East branch, although sometimes Shun wondered how much of that was real and how much of it was simply because they were too naive to notice.

"_Ne_, Shun, do you ever regret it? Not continuing on in AEGIS?"

She'd expected him to think about it, or be a little bit wistful at least. That's normal, right? But there was not a speck of hesitation or confusion in his firm "No."

"But..."

"There are many things I have to protect," he continued, "and if continuing on with AEGIS meant that I can no longer do that, then what was the point of going?" It was very much his kind of answer.

"What about you, Rurippe? You could have gone if you'd wanted to,"

Old resentments bubbled up sneakily with embarrassment. She reached out and smacked him across the back of the head without thinking, but these days he was so much taller than her that her out-stretched hand only just reached between his shoulder blades.

"I stayed to be with you, Ukiya-kun no Baka!" It took them two more years after AEGIS Far East was dissolved to get anywhere with each other, between one thing and another, and a lot of tears and frustration she really could have done without. Why is love in the real world never smooth the way it should be?

Now would have been appropriate for him to blush. She would have thought it cute if he did. Instead, Shun laughed. "_Maa_, how was I to know? You never said anything!"

"Don't laugh, it's all your fault!"

"Well, boys can be pretty slow about that stuff and I was just a boy," he kept chuckling, making a comical show of dodging her blows.

"You still are! Dim-wit!"

"Hmm?"

"I mean, have you even thought about when we'll get married?"

It slipped out in a huff. She stopped and clapped her hands to her mouth, what am unladylike thing to say! But the worse was when he shrugged nonchalantly, the laughter from teasing her still dying in his chest and said:

"You know, I really haven't given it any thought,"

And she stopped dead in her tracks.

Her father has never approved of Shun. It was stupid class discrimination, as far as Ruriko was concerned. She didn't see why it would be okay for her to be with someone who worked at a desk in an office building but not someone who ran his own shop in the neighbourhood market district. There was the question of a man's finances and how he would be able to support her, but it wasn't as if she would be an expensive wife, and anyway, didn't both their families use to live in the exact same neighbourhood before the government moved everyone away in order to build the National Olympic Stadium? What made the Ikusawas better people than the Ukiyas?

But now, she was starting to think maybe there was some merit to her father's bias. While Ruriko has grown into a sophisticated modern woman, Shun was still and forever just a simple, well-meaning country boy, all rough around the edges; and while she may not feel the difference very much now, what about five, ten years from now? He was never going to be the kind of boy to bring her to fancy restaurants and tropical holidays like she is used to at home, or even the kind to buy her nice, classy, things – he truly lacked the taste, even if money were no object.

He was the boy who would make the trip to Nikotama every weekday afternoon to bring her lunch and walk her along the river bank, then dash on back to make ramen and other home style dishes for a shopful of old regulars and high school kids until every last customer was gone; a boy who makes dinner every night for as many of his friends and family as would bother to turn up for it, who insists on calling her by a childish nickname she has long since given up on trying to argue out of, and who would walk her home at night not because it was gentlemanly but because he knew what might lurk in the dark.

She wasn't a hundred percent sure if she needed more, the way her father said, but maybe this is for the best.

"I see... well, forget I said anything," she showed him a forced smile and left him under the streetlamp in a hurry.

"Marriage, huh?" Shun asked aloud at moth dancing around the lamp light, mulling the concept over in his head.

**/.\**

* * *

Next Time:

4. _**Yasashii Tomoshibi**_


	5. 4: Gentle Lamplight

"_**Ashita no Rondeau**_"  
**(Rondeau for Tomorrow)**

**.**

**3. **_**Yasashii Tomoshibi**_** (Gentle Lamplight)**

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**

/\\\

"It's residue Gate energy from the Nikotama Massacre. It still echoes here, trapping people and Invaders in memories of being human," the tall, gaunt woman called Lich said in way of explanation to Kageyama's earlier question as they sat around a small campfire shored with pieces of concrete still with corroded metal rebar sticking out of them. 'Residue' was an understatement for lingering Gate energy so strong that it was also at fault for him involuntarily seeing into her mind when they'd touched, back on the crystalline sand of the Dead Zone.

She looked up into Kageyama's blank face.

"Oh, right, that was after your time. It's hard to keep track, sometimes," her expression softened for a moment, and she clamped down on it, hard.

"No, I want to know about you. Who are you? What is your connection to the Invaders?" He insisted.

"I'm a Gatekeeper, same as you."

"That's not all, that's not enough," he growled, tired of being fobbed off. "Where did you come from? How does your body think you are several different ages at the same time?"

"It's not nice to pry," she replied dryly, "and especially not about a lady's age."

"Then it's good that I'm not nice!"

She smiled, though it was a wry, unpleasant smirk more than anything else. "You forget the most important question: why are you here."

"I already know why. You brought me back to make use of my power."

She nodded. "The Gate of Insight. They say you're naturally clairvoyant too."

"I don't need any of that to see through you," he snarled,

"Good, then I don't need to say anything."

"... ..."

Kageyama wavered, unsure of what had just transpired. Did he just... lose?

"Eat your dinner," she nagged, shoving a foil-lined bag of some gloopy grey gruel at him.

Kageyama eyed it, and her, up with a good measure of disgust and stomped off to find a place to sulk.

\\\/

**1 9 7 6**

/\\\

When he didn't show up for their usual lunch date the next day, Ruriko locked herself in the office restroom and had a little weep.

Wait, maybe he thought he was giving her space? It does sound like the kind of blockhead thing he might do. But when she found out that he hadn't been home or at work since the night before, she started to panic.

"What if it's Invaders?" She latched onto Banchou in the alley behind the Tekkoutsuken, the only other remaining person in her life who knew of AEGIS and the power of the Gates. "We've got to find him, Banchou! Come on, right now!"

"But... but... I'm in the middle of work!"

"That's not important! Shun could be hurt!"

"UWAA, you're right! We should go right now!" Banba Choutarou ripped off his apron and grabbed Ruriko's arm, literally dragging her off. "YO, OYABUN! I'm taking the rest of the day off!"

"OI, BANBA! Where the hell do you think you're going? What about my customers, you bastard!" Kurogane Yuuzei, his boss and owner of the Tekkoutsuen, emerged into the back alley from the kitchen brandishing a large soup ladle.

Banchou quivered, suitably torn. "To hell with the customers! I'll make it up to you, Boss, but right now, Ukiya-kun needs me!"

"Eh?" The tough old man's expression changed. "Ukiya-kun? Isn't he in Nagoya?"

"NAGOYA?!" Ruriko exclaimed. What was he doing there?

"Ya, he's gone to see Megumi. Took the first train this morning."

Kurogane Megumi worked in Nagoya. She was the same age as this lot and used to go to school with them. They weren't friends, not really, but then Megumi has never been a very friendly sort of kid, to Yuuzei's eternal disappointment, even though he could not be prouder of his nurse daughter.

"Oh!" Both youngsters turned bright red.

"Then I guess I'm going back to wait on the customers-sama..." Banchou picked up his apron doggedly and crawled back to work.

"Are you ok, Ruriko-san?" Yuuzei peered kindly into Ruriko's burning face. "Did something happen with Ukiya-kun?"

"Nu... nothing!" She stammered and hastily backed out of the alley, dropping quick embarrassed bows every few steps until he went back inside.

_He's gone to see Megumi_. Ruriko's heart sank. Tears flowed unheeded down her cheeks all the way on her walk home, uncaring of what anyone who saw might think.

.

It was a sunny afternoon in Nagoya, so it was unusual that there weren't more people taking advantage of it in the tranquil recovery garden.

The reason becomes clear in a moment, as the doing of a small knot of eight men and women from as young as six to as old as eighty-nine crowded near a pair of glass doors, chocking down the only access to the garden. Most of them wore pale blue hospital regulation pajamas, though three of them wore nursing uniforms and one had a physician's white coat over a simple white shirt and black suit pants.

It wasn't clear if they were trying to eavesdrop on the man and woman meeting in the garden or secure their privacy, partly because they hadn't come to a conclusion on that amongst themselves yet.

"It's a man! There's a man here to see Nurse Kurogane! From Tokyo!"

"A man? Is he young or old?"

"Young! Twenties! Can't be more than twenty-five!"

"Really? Kurogane the Iron Angel? Our Nurse Kurogane?"

"What others could there be?"

"Is that the one she used to like in high school? Yuki? Yuji?"

"Can't be, that guy died,"

"This guy's called Ukiya, I heard it from reception."

"The one who's inheriting her father's shop?"

"_Eee_? Are they engaged?"

"What are they talking about?"

"I heard the word 'marriage'!"

Not thirty feet away, Nurse Kurogane stole a glance at the large picture window next to the hospital doors and sighed.

"You're an idiot, Ukiya Shun."

"I know that, Megu! That's why I'm asking you!" He cried in frustration, begging with both hands pressed together in front of his bowed head. "I wouldn't have made it through university if it weren't for you... Please! You're the smartest person I know!"

Ukiya Shun looked a mess. He hadn't slept nor changed his clothes for nearly forty-eight hours, give or take, and there was a crazed look in his eyes. Even at twenty-four, he was still just a brash, wide-eyed, fumbling idiot boy.

"What does Ikusawa think?"

"Ruriko doesn't know anything, and she doesn't have to!"

Megumi took a deep breath for patience. Idiot. There was no point explaining to him how that almost invariably guarantees Ikusawa Ruriko would have already found out about his whereabouts in the worst possible way, and why it was wrong of him to come straight to her the morning after telling his girlfriend he hadn't thought about marriage at all. Most people would assume it's because he'd then thought about it and has come to propose to his best friend Megu.

Shun and Megumi have never fully explained their relationship to anyone. There has never been the need. She was a pariah to the old AEGIS group back home, so naturally he never mentioned her around the rest. And since she'd been accepted and left for nursing school barely a month after graduating from Tategami Private High, none of their old set has had cause to mention her in more than casual passing since, either.

Indeed, how would the privileged little Miss feel about her boyfriend coming to her, dull, impoverished, gloomy, second-place wallflower her, instead of his smart, popular, pretty, rich girlfriend for advice?

"Fine." She grumbled. "Come back at six, I'll be off work then."

She stood up to leave, though not before placing an unopened cafeteria bento on the bench beside him.

"You can have that," she said unkindly, "I haven't any appetite."

It was a lie, they both knew it was, but he had gotten used to her years ago and hardly noticed it any more. The barbed words and thorniness are just over-vigilant defence mechanisms built into the walls of self-scorn she'd built around herself a long time ago for reasons he could not really understand. He would worry about her except she seems to have done well enough for herself despite it, so he didn't.

She headed back inside quickly with seemingly supernatural stealth and cleared her throat just inside the doors.

"Ahem."

"Nurse!"

"Kurogane-san!"

Shock, panic, embarrassment.

"How did you know we were here?"

Megumi pointed mutely at the cluster of drip stands between them, still heavy with saline bags and _plainly visible through the windows_.

"Alright, back to your rooms," she shooed her prying audience to their feet with a firm, matronly tone. "And you, Morizuka-sensei, for shame! Peeping with the rest of this lot like a bunch of Junior High Schoolers!" The young doctor hanged his head in shame.

If Shun had been in any mind to chat to her patients and colleagues, he would have been surprised. Megumi had changed, even though neither he nor her have realised this: she because she could never bear to examine herself, and him because they would always revert naturally to the way they were in high school when around each other, the way people often do with old friends. The same would be true of him, if he had changed at all.

The Kurogane Megumi Nagoya knows is a dependable, no-nonsense young woman with a secret soft, fluffy side that seeps through the seams more often than she would care to admit. They called her the Iron Angel behind her back, tough as nails and angelically kind. True, she wasn't the prettiest nurse nor the most popular or highest performing, she wasn't even very compassionate, because true kindness rarely is; but she was always there where it mattered the most and can always be counted on to fight for you, provided you've told her the truth, which she had a knack for finding out too.

"_Ne_, Kurogane-san, who is he?"

"Is that your fiancé?"

"Ack, no," she made a face, firmly herding the little gossip club back towards the wards. "No, he's more like... a little brother."

\\\/

**? ? ? ?**

/\\\

It was cold and his hand was starting to hurt where he'd cut it on the green sand that he now realised was in fact the fragments of thousands of crushed Invader crystals. Kageyama bundled his tie around it and hugged his knees closer to his chest, feeling sorry for himself. Maybe his hand will get infected and he will finally turn into an Invader too, free of the suffering of the mortal coil.

That night, he dreamt about a world taken over by Invaders. They stood on every corner, leading astonishingly normal lives, bartering and gossiping with each other in strange screeches of static, nearly human; and of people living like rats, wild-eyed and feral, scuttling in dark alleyways, filthy and diseased. It was an old dream, one he has had before. He recognised his father and saw him ripped apart for food by other dirty, rag-clad, scavenging people even while he dug into himself, stuffing his face with bloody mouthfuls of his own flesh and guts.

As usual, he turned and fled from the carnage, only to find similar pockets of people feasting on each other everywhere, filling the city with a rust-red miasma that consumed him with terror beyond any imagination. He daren't scream, in case the blood-fog got inside him. He daren't cry, in case they came for him.

Somehow, at this point, he would always find himself holding a pair of sunglasses like the ones the Invaders wore, he can never remember how, and he would discover that putting them on blocked out the horrific humanity and its atrocities, even purged him of the smell, taste and feel of their deadly pollution. The sunglasses kept him safe. He puts them on, and the dream ends.

In _this_ dream, this time, however, they did not appear. He stumbled through the city with his heart pounding in his chest and his jacket tied up around his nose and mouth, a poor defence against the searing fog but the only one that he could muster, growing more frantic with each passing moment, looking for those sunglasses...

Then he woke and, remembering where he was, had a little cry.

Once that was out of the way, he was able to pick himself up off the ground and head back towards Lich's camp for breakfast and some answers.

Ruka had found them sometime in the night and now slept curled in a foetal ball in the swaths of her heavy, dusty cloak beside the fire, at Lich's feet. The light danced in the latter's steely eyes as she watched him, hawk-like and dispassionate.

"It was rude and childish of me to run off, I'm sorry," he said from the other side of the fire, nearly doubling over in a deep, exaggerated bow. She said nothing.

"I'm a self-anointing idiot," he flashed a small self-depreciating smile and told her both versions of his dream.

"I thought in the dream I was choosing a way to salvation, but I'm not. I'm just avoiding reality. I thought I was seeing visions of the future and that it was somehow my job to save everyone. It isn't, is it. What has happened here happened because I'd confused my dream with reality, so now it is my responsibility to fix it. That's why you've brought me here, it's time I grow up."

"Where I'm from we call that the _chuu-ni_ syndrome," she listened patiently and smirked when he was done, the self-important delusions of teenaged kids caught between the duplicity of wanting to stand out and wanting to fit in. She seemed gentler, now that Ruka was back with them safe and sound, but not by much. "You'll never grow up while carrying that around."

"Please, Ogawa-san, tell me what is going on. Please tell me what I need to know."

It seemed for a moment that she wasn't going to. Then she shifted, unfolding, and stirred up the fire between them with a stick.

"Sit down and stop calling me that," she mumbled sullenly. "Names are dangerous. That Bitch can find you with it and destroy your existence. So here, now, I am Lich. You should pick something too."

It sounded like good advice. "By 'That Bitch' I assume you mean one of the Officers like Aku..."

"Don't!" She cut him off sharply. "Didn't I just say? Names are dangerous. If They hear themselves mentioned, they _will_ show up, bunch of sick bastards."

Ok, so the Invaders are being led by boss Invaders and people know who they are. Kageyama frowned a little, trying to think.

He has never met any other high-functioning Invaders besides Akuma Hakushaku and Kikai Shogun. He recalled snatches of hushed conversations between the two that implied this was a deliberate machination on the Hakushaku's part to protect his own interests and standing, which in turn spoke to a degree of hostile rivalry between the pair and whoever the rest were.

Akuma Hakushaku obviously exists in this place. Who else?

"What about humanity? How much of us is left?" _Please don't let them be all that's left._

Lich chuckled lightly, amused that the man who'd once widely derided the population of the world as "shitty bugs" would refer to humanity as "us".

"_Jin Rui Zen Metsu_." Humanity wiped. The words hit him harder than he'd expected. He barely caught her next words, though those didn't give him much hope either. "It's just several dozen Gatekeepers and a few million Invaders now."

"What year is it?" He asked weakly, not that that would change anything.

"I don't know," she replied truthfully. "My watch broke a long time ago." Something didn't sound right. His head spun. There seemed to be more that she wasn't telling him but he let it go, for now.

"What are we –am I– supposed to do?"

She shrugged with an unexpected note of sympathy in her voice. "You're the Gate of Insight, you tell us."

\\\/

**1 9 8 0**

/\\\

Lake Placid, New York, 18th February, 1980, five days into the 13th Winter Olympics. A striking, modelesque woman in a trendy hot pink coat with faux leopard print trims stood atop the summit of a 90-meter ski jump tower, taking photos of the wintery white world below through a giant high-powered camera that barely fit in her bare hands. The wind whipped her long black hair around in a deadly frenzy, much to her annoyance, but darned if she was going to admit she was wrong about not tying it up!

"Miss?" A man wearing a windbreaker bearing the official IOC emblem rose determinedly towards her on the ski lift. He had a piece of paper in one hand and a confused scowl on his face. "Miss?"

June Thunders turned her face towards him, but did not stop what she was doing.

"Miss, we can't verify your credentials. I'm sorry, Miss, you're going to have to give me your film and leave."

She wasn't surprised, AEGIS simply doesn't have the same clout as it used to ten years ago. She'd had to sneak up here using a fake press pass she'd bought off some kid behind the hospital.

"That can't be right," she exclaimed, lowering her camera and pulling off her snow goggles to reveal a pair of beautiful, incredulous eyes. "Please run it again! If I don't get this today my editor will kill me!"

The groundskeeper shuffled uncomfortably. "I'm really sorry, I can't let you do that," he said, feeling downright miserable as her eyes welled up with tears.

"No, don't cry, don't... aw shit... Alright. I'm gonna go check with my boss," he sighed, "then I'm coming back to get you out. It'll probably take me twenty minutes, and if you're not here by the time I get back I'm gonna assume none of this happened. Capish?"

"Oh, thank you!" June flung herself around the man's neck and planted a tearful kiss on his cheek. He blushed. As soon as he trudged off, her demeanour changed. Her shoulders squared, the tears disappeared, and her expression lost its innocent sweetness.

"Hound, this is Hawk. Come in, Over." She spoke quietly into a fancy wristwatch. A small frown sat on her brow until a static-laced female voice sounded in her ear via a hidden earpiece.

"Hawk, this is Hound. Standing by, Over."

"Wrap it up down there, Hound. Rendezvous in twenty, Over."

"Understood, Over."

She took a few more shots, then put the camera back into the large sling case by her feet, tiptoed onto the lift down and ran towards the exit like a privileged debutante unused to running, throwing a goodbye kiss at the groundskeeper's office for good measure, just in case he was watching.

"You did it again, didn't you?" The agent designated Hound sat down across from her at a diner near the Olympic village, greeting her with the accusation. "Isn't it time you act your age?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," June replied primly.

"Liar. You forgot to fix your lipstick."

June smiled sweetly as she pulled out a compact mirror and did just that. "I can't help it if I've still got it,"

"Oh, think of the devastation there'll be when those poor souls find out you're already thirty!"

"Excuse me, I'm only twenty-two!"

"Come on, you were twenty-two when I came to New York and I'm twenty-seven now!"

"That's right. Who's the old woman now?" She returned smugly.

Kaoru faceplanted on the diner table. How she'd endured seven years of June Thunders remains one of the greatest mysteries in the world to her.

"Anyway. Did you find anything?" June flipped into business mode.

"Mm, here," Kaoru dug into her pocket and came up with a trio of green spiked crystal clusters each slightly smaller than the palm of her hand, reminiscent of konpeito candy. "Scalpers down by Equestrian Centre. Presence confirmed."

The senior agent nodded. "Good job. This should be more than enough to open an investigation."

It wasn't. June was being hopeful and Kaoru knew it. Every year things get more complicated in the business of Alien Extermination and Gatekeeping. When Konoe Kaoru first joined, AEGIS was a vast international network rivalling the United Nations organisation, with deep, government-backed pockets and a roaring can-do attitude. These days, it's all penny-and-dime politics. Sorties cost money, cover-ups cost money, recruitment costs money. Governments balked at the price tags and shied from everything supporting an alien fighting agency would imply while simultaneously imposing an ever-growing laundry list of rules and conditions to prevent any one government from benefitting excessively from the agency's action.

The result was a dwindling team of over-worked, underpaid, rag-tag agents being slowly ground into apathy, barred from exercising their power in public and a mountain of paperwork behind them delaying any sort of meaningful action. The inside joke was that when one day the Invaders enact a hostile takeover, by the time all the necessary authorisations have been approved and all political parties placated enough to support an official mission, the invasion would be over and done with.

Kaoru was lucky her Gate power was a personal enhancement type that only boosted her innate athletic capabilities, making it easy to use and excuse, so long as she didn't mind being called freakshow names like "The StrongMan Girl". Gate Keepers like June have a harder time explaining away how they are able to summon lightning to their fingertips at will, or move at the speed of sound. That sort of thing only happens in the comics.

She ordered a piece of pie and drummed her fingers idly to a Pink Floyd song playing over the little radio behind the service counter as June ducked beside the restrooms with a handful of change for the public payphone.

_There is no pain, you are receding; A distant ship, smoke on the horizon,  
You're only coming through in waves...  
_

The reflection in the window showed a grown woman, shaggy, shoulder-length hair stuffed under a Yankees baseball hat, tired brown eyes staring off into space, trying not to look at herself. June, she thought enviously, has hardly changed at all since they'd first met in Tokyo, the summer of '69... gosh, has it been eleven years already? Where does all that time go?

A crackling Japanese voice caught her attention; it was a language she hadn't heard in nearly ten years: "_What kind of shitty country is this? Is this how you treat your guests? Don't think just because we're small you can push us around!_"

Kaoru twisted in her seat. It was a young man wearing a Yankees jacket watching a live interview on an Mtv-1 hand-held television set in the booth behind hers.

"Hey buddy, turn that up," she smiled tugging lightly on the tongue of her Yankees cap.

The young man looked her over suspiciously. "You know what the chink's saying?"

Ah, one of those. "Naw," she lied in a Brooklyn accent. "Is that the guy who tied for Silver yesterday? Bleedin' shame about that. What do they know about Ski Jumpin', you know?"

"Yea, right? You local?"

"Sure," she flirted back, watching the TV screen in his hand intently out of the corner of her eye. "NYC local enough for you?"

Some short-haired blonde was interviewing an embarrassed group in official Japanese Olympic team ski jackets. It wasn't the main competing representatives, Kaoru knew all about them with a sportsfan's fervour. The man speaking to the clueless interviewer wore a stiff, mad, grin, his face twitching ever so slightly in some weird spasm. If she hadn't understood his language she would probably have presumed, like her new friend, that he was nervous and excited to be on TV.

In fact, he was viciously decrying the living conditions in Olympic village and the various insults and injustices the Japanese team and their supporters have been forced to endure at the venues. "_What is the meaning of this? We came here as honourable competitors, not to be treated like second-class criminals!_"

It was then that she saw the familiar sunglasses the Japanese man on TV was pulling out of his jacket. A look of abject horror covered her face as he struggled with it on the other end of the signal, fighting and succumbing to the inexplicable urge to put it on. The boy holding the MTV-1 was ragging on about something or another to do with a ski lodge, but she was no longer listening.

"JUNE?" She started calling, eyes wide and glued to the tiny screen. "JUUUNNEEEE! You need to see this!"

The TV flickered and distorted. The man was changing.

**/.\**

* * *

Next Time:

4. _**Heijou to Toki no Sukima de**_


End file.
